Sales Reports: Overview, Importance, Types & More
What are the most important sales reports?
As a Business Person, staying on top of your sales performance is crucial to the success of your business. You need a way to track performance and hold your team accountable. Using reports is one of the best ways to do this.
But with so many different sales reports available, it can be overwhelming to determine which ones are the most important to focus on.
This blog will discuss the top sales reports that every management leader should track to make informed decisions and drive sales growth.
From key performance indicators to customer insights, we will cover the essential reports that will provide valuable insight into your sales team’s performance and help guide your strategic decisions.
Overview: Sales reports
Sales reports are essential tools a business can use to track its progress and performance. By monitoring sales data over time, companies can identify trends and patterns to help them make better decisions about their products, services, and strategies.
Sales reports can be generated using various software programs or online services. Most businesses will use a sales report template to ensure that all of the necessary information is included in the report. Once the sales report is generated, companies can review it and make necessary changes.
Why are sales reports important?
There are several reasons why sales reports are essential for businesses:
- They provide valuable insights into the sales team’s performance and help guide strategic decisions.
- They track key metrics such as sales revenue, targets, and customer behavior, which are critical to the business’s success.
- They help identify areas for improvement and implement strategies to drive sales growth.
- They provide a comprehensive view of the sales team’s performance and help management leaders assess the effectiveness of their sales strategies.
- They enable businesses to stay competitive and adapt to changing market conditions.
Types of sales reports
There are several sales reports that management leaders should track to monitor the performance of their sales team. Some of essential sales reports include:
- Sales Pipeline Report
A sales pipeline report is a type of sales report that tracks the progress of potential sales opportunities through each stage of the sales process. It provides:
- A detailed view of the number of leads.
- The number of deals in progress.
- The likelihood of closing each deal.
This report helps you understand the health of their sales pipeline and make informed decisions about their sales strategy.
For example, a sales pipeline report may show that the sales team has 100 leads, 20 deals in progress, and a 50% likelihood of closing 10 deals. This report helps management leaders understand the health of their sales pipeline and make informed decisions about their sales strategy.
- Depth and Width Report
Measuring the depth and width of our existing customers will help us gain new customers faster. Studies show that you’re more likely to get more customers if you have visualized data of your territory-wise penetration.
It’s no secret that comparing visual data of the same territories over different timelines will help you to get actionable data. It also helps to achieve the target and increase your strength compared to your competitors.
By tracking the territory performance for fast-moving products, you can ensure that the sales team maximizes its potential in the targeted geographies.
- Average deal size report
The average deal size report is one of the most important documents for your sales reps. It tells them how much they need to sell to hit their quotas and sets expectations for the sales cycle. Monitoring your average deal size is essential to keeping your sales operations running smoothly, so always keep an eye on it.
The average deal size is an important metric to help predict revenue. If, for example, your revenue target is $100,000 per quarter and your average deal size is $10,000, you would need to land ten deals to reach your quarterly target.
This report is designed to help you set expectations for each sales rep, create weekly and monthly milestones, track the performance of each rep, and gauge the overall success of your company’s sales strategy.
- Average sales cycle length report
The average sales cycle length report is a sales report that tracks the average length of time it takes for a sales team to convert a lead into a customer. This report provides valuable insight into the effectiveness of the sales team’s strategies and helps management leaders identify areas for improvement.
For example, if the average sales cycle length is 30 days, it takes the sales team an average of 30 days to convert a lead into a customer. This report can be used to compare the average sales cycle length of different sales team members or sales channels and identify opportunities for improving the efficiency of the sales process.
When you’re thinking about what metric to use, it’s a good idea to establish an ideal timeframe to use as a benchmark. One of those benchmarks is the time a sales rep takes to work through your sales cycle. If you find that some reps have sales cycles that are much longer than their peers’, you can take a closer look at their efforts and see if there are any areas where they need coaching.
- Marketing Collateral Usage Report
The Marketing Collateral Usage Report is a sales report that tracks the effectiveness of marketing collateral in generating leads and sales. This report provides valuable insight into the impact of marketing materials on the sales process and helps management leaders identify the most effective collateral. You can make informed decisions about which collateral to use in future campaigns.
For example, if a sales team uses a brochure/catalogue as marketing collateral, the report shows that the brochure generated 50 leads and 10 sales. The leads and sales generated through the brochure show that it effectively developed an interest and drove sales.
- Gaps and Opportunity Report
Monitoring sales is one of many things you should look for as a manager. It’s essential to track the number and value of deals the sales team could have won.
The customers who have taken X products in the past but now stopped buying it. The customers who are taking X product but not Y product or list of customers who have yet to take X product till now provides actionable data. Such valuable insight into the sales team’s performance helps sales leaders identify trends and patterns in their sales efforts.
For example, if the sales team has won 10 deals worth $10,000 and lost 5 deals worth $5,000, this report would show that the sales team has a win rate of 66.67% and a win value of $50,000. This report can be used to compare the win rates and win deals of different sales team members or sales channels and identify areas for improvement.
With this performance report, you can compare how your company is doing in terms of size, product type, sales representatives, and sales teams. You can understand the effectiveness of your sales strategies and make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.
- Churned Customers Report
The churn rate is the percentage of customers or subscribers who cancel their service or subscription within a given time.
Churn is an inevitable part of doing business, but if your company’s churn rate is higher than what’s average for your industry, it could indicate deeper issues. There might be a problem with pricing, service, product quality, delivery, or some other aspect of the customer experience.
You may also identify misalignment or other customer experience issues during the sales process. By analyzing your company’s churn rate, you can get to the root of the problem and take steps to mitigate it.
A high churn rate in churned customers’ reports can be very detrimental to a business, as it can indicate that customers are not happy with the product or service. It can also lead to a loss of revenue, as companies must constantly acquire new customers to offset those who have to cancel their service.
By identifying the underlying causes of churn, you can implement strategies to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the churn rate. This can help your company maintain a healthy customer base and drive long-term sales growth.
- Sales Call Report
A sales call report is a document that sales representatives use to record details about their customer interactions. The report includes information such as the date and time of the call, the customer’s name and contact information, the call’s purpose, and a conversation summary.
For example, if a sales team member has made 10 sales calls daily, with an average duration of 20 minutes per call, their sales call report would reflect this information.
By evaluating how many sales are closed per day, you can better understand what techniques are working and which ones need to be improved. If there is a low success rate, this report will help you understand why and propose better closing techniques. On the other hand, if the opposite is true and you’re closing a high number of sales, you can share those tactics with the team so they can learn from your success.
- Conversion Time Report
The time spent between every step of lead journey should be tracked. Conversion Rate Report and Lead Response Time Report are two examples.
A conversion rate report is a sales report that tracks the number of leads or prospects converted into customers.
By monitoring and evaluating your team’s conversion rate over time, you can pinpoint which areas of the sales process they excel in and where there is room for improvement.
If your team consistently has a high conversion rate, they’re effectively turning leads into opportunities – so you can scale the strategies that are working well. On the other hand, if there are consistently low conversion rates, this points to room for improvement that can address through changes in strategy or additional training for your team.
The lead response time report tracks the time it takes for the sales team to respond to incoming leads or prospects.
For example, if the lead response time is 24 hours, the sales team takes an average of 24 hours to respond to incoming leads or prospects.
By tracking the lead response time, you can ensure that the sales team responds to leads on time and maximizes their chances of converting them into customers.
Get Sales Reports effortlessly using MagentaBi
The ready availability of sales reports will help you track sales insights based on country, product, revenue, salesperson, customers etc. By regularly monitoring these reports, business persons can identify areas for improvement and take action based on data to drive sales growth. And with MagentaBi, all important reports are available at a click and track these essential sales reports.
Some of the key features of MagentaBi include:
- Ability to track and analyze sales data in real-time.
- Integration with popular ERP platforms, such as Tally, Busy, SAP B1, Datanote, SQL based etc. allowing users to seamlessly pull in data from these systems for even more detailed analysis.
- Gain valuable insights into their sales performance with the Ability to identify gaps in SPIP (Sales, Purchase, Inventory, Payments).
- View key performance indicators with 360° View on Dashboards on web and mobile apps.
Transform your sales data into actionable insights by creating sales reports with MagentaBi.
Sign up for a free demo account and see how it improves your sales reporting process.
